ret, he introduced his alter ego cookie dough and for 15 years has been one of the san francisco's icons. he was the grand duches of san francisco, named best drag queen by the san francisco bay guardian. eddie starred in a number of short films with his partner, which were played at film festivals throughout this country and also featured in the 2005 documentary "blood, sweat and glitter." that followed performances preparing for miss tranny shack, including eddie's cles friend and upstairs neighbor, steven. eddie was known for his warmth and sense of humor and this gentle spirit shone out to all who knew him or saw his

performance as cookie dough. donations are still being collected under the name cookie dough at gofund me. cookie's celebration will be held at the victoria theater starting at 6:00 p.m. i have another in memoriam and this is an in memoriam for an institution, a legend in the mission, alfonzo, a mainstay of the district and activist whose important work took his life from san juan to new york and back and finally landing 30 years in san francisco. he was known for his trademark brown fedora and elegant style died of lung cancer. he was born in puerto rico and grew up in the barrio.

he contracted polieo from the standing water near his home, but his will was unshakeable. he was involved in the pro-independence moment and even as the university of puerto rico expelled him and a hundred other student for this activism, he continued to fight. he moved to new york and became involved with the puerto rican nationalist group young lords, as well as the anarchistgroup up against the wall and a name i really can't say during this meeting and gave out free clothes and food to the community. he protested the vietnam war and police brutality and involved in the countercultural revolutionary forces that were shaping our country in the '60s and '70s. seeking a change, alfonzo moved to portland and then san francisco where he lived 30

years. he gave readings at the farm on potrero avenue and became active in community journalism. in the early '80s, he joined as a translator. alfonso continued to work in translating for the paper. he was at the office translating articles for the final edition of 2014 just eight days before he died. his work and presence within the community will be deeply missed. a memorial is planned for february 8th and it will begin at cafe labohem and move to the culturality center at 3:00 p.m. more information can be found at the facebook event page. i apologize that i have a couple of other items left.

the next item is an item that my office is working with supervisor kim's office and she will be speaking on this item as well. last wednesday we had a tragic fire that occurred in an historic building at 22nd and mission street and very shortly i will be making commendation to a very heroic young man who was involved in that fire. the building was home to many families, businesses and individuals that have been fixtures of this community for so many years. it's something that has truly shake in this community. i want to thank the sfpd and

fire department who saves many families and residents who took refuse from the smoke and flames in interior stair wells. i would like to thank our chief and the many brave firefighters who risked their lives to save so many. unfortunately there was one person that passed away we're not able to reach in time. this individual passed away, but for the amazing work of the fire department, i'm fraid afraid we would be talking about many more fatalities. 63 residents, 16 children, some as young as 1-week-old are now homeless and living in a

temporary shelter. it has raised the number of people displaced to 130. these families were able toed for living in the mission, one of the highest priced neighborhoods in the most expensive city in america because of one reason rent control. the human services agency and our office are now attempting to find a couple dozen housing units, which in this market is almost impossible. we are looking for six studios, two one-bedrooms, seven two-bedroom and four three-bedrooms to house these residents. we call upon this board of supervisors, the mayor, city agencies, local businesses and the good people of san francisco to help us find housing for these individuals. i know that this merciful city of san francisco will rise to

the occasion and find a place for these families. the three fires this week have also raised some very important and serious questions about what this city is doing to address preventible fires to enforce existing fire and building codes and to hold building owners accountable for the safety of our residents. in this building we repeatedly heard from dozens of residents who have noted that the fire alarms did not work. we repeatedly heard from residents who were having a tough time to find a fire exit that actually worked, and the fire extinguishers were also not in working condition. stories of broken fire alarms and unsafe conditions point to the fact something has to be done and we have to ensure that the one fatality was not a death that happened in vain.

so our office and the office of supervisor kim are right now working on legislative options to deal with these issues and you will be hearing more about that in very anywhere future. we'll be holding a press conference with the families and victims of these fires, so we can let san francisco know the tremendous need that is out there. but today i will be calling, along with supervisor kim, for a hearing to review procedures and interdepartmental protocols for fire and building code inspectionsing. there are a number of questions that i have that i would like to be addressed at the hearing by the fire department the department of building inspection and the department of public health. we need to do whatever is necessary to prevent another tragic death from happening. and finally, related to that note, i would like to do a final in memoriam in memory of

one victim who died in the fire at 22nd and mission. i would like to take this time to honor marciao, who is described as all who knew hims a kind, friendly and selfless individual, the kind of friend and neighbor who helped to make the mission such a beautiful community. he grew up in el salvador and moved to san francisco to make a better life for himself and help his family. he continued to provide support for his family in el salvador throughout his entire life and he was very involved in the church where he was known to offer a helping hand to anyone who was ever in need. friends have set up a gofundme site to help raise money to send his body back to el salvador. so the rest i submit.

>> thank you, supervisor campos. and to supervisor kim, i apologize, we're going to interrupt the roll call for introduction of new business for the president to call the 2:30 commendation period. >> colleagues at this time, it's time for our 2:30 special recognition from supervisors. i understand supervisors yee, mar and campos will be presenting and i want to remind colleagues of board rule 4.13 that all 2:30 commendations should take no longer than five minutes each. supervisor yee, we'll start with you. >> thank you, president breed. today, colleagues, i am honoring richard choi, if you would like to step up to the podium, the owner of sme cafe. you are probably wondering why i am honoring him as a

restaurant owner, when it's not restaurant month? mr. choi, i just want to say a few words about mr. choi and i will tell you why i am doing this. mr. choi immigrated to the u.s. from hong kong in 1969 and has been working in the restaurant industry since 1998. he became the owner and operator of s & e cafe in 2012. and back in november, i, with supervisor tang, were proud to help kickoff a special program called "champs." at mr. choi's champ is an acronym for choose, appetizing meal plan for seniors, now you know why there are acronyms for this. it's a new program allowing seniors to get nutritious meals at participating restaurants

and mr. choi's restaurant is the first restaurant to participate. in fact, i believe maybe the first and only right now. and champs it's located in my district. s & e cafe serves residents throughout san francisco and, in fact to-date, the program has 1800 seniors signed up for the program and has served 3,000 meals since november through this program. these meals are approved by dietitians and will allow seniors to select their choice of meals. so it's not just having one meal that they can eat from and that is all they can eat. i have mentioned on several occasions about seniors that

become isolated. and the problems associated with isolation. i felt, in fact, just yesterday we opened the we have had portal playground senior center, the first services for seniors in decades and actually this is only the second program in district 7. and part of this all of this effort is to get seniors out of their homes, as much as possible and get them back into the community, so that they can continue to socialize, and the champs program does exactly that. because there are seniors that may need more help and there are seniors who have nowhere to go, but there are seniors who really want to go somewhere and not necessarily in the programs' center, where they

might be seeing people that they don't know. it gives them an opportunity to meet with their neighbors at these restaurants and so forth. so i would say that one of the reasons why it's special to me is because back in my younger days when i had to run a summer food program for the chinatown community for a lot of organizations, that is because nobody else wanted to do it. so this is sort of a realization, i know how difficult it is to do these type of program and all the paperwork that you have to do and, in fact, what makes mr. choi to special, there is almost no profit. he is doing it out of his heart. this is a partnership and thank you mr. choi and your staff for

participating in this program and helping to make it so successful. i don't know what you are going do when all of these thousands of people show up every day. before you say a few day i would like to invite andy from self-help for the elderly and anne hilton from the department of aging and adult services to say a few words, if you would like. >> anne hinton from the department of aging and adult service and just to say one of the reasons this is the only program like it in the city is because this is a hard program to get on the ground. we have many, many, many, many rules and regulations for our nutrition program sites. so it's wonderful that this gentleman and his staff have really risen to the occasion on that and we also want to thank annie chung, because frankly without her leadership and supervisor yee's, i'm not sure

just how far we may have gotten with this. so thank you very, very much >> thank you. >> i also wanted to thank supervisor yee and richard and anne for supporting this wonderful champs program. we have all gone to s & e and said it's wonderful that they can do any time from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. in the morning and they don't need to have one menu. they can have several choices and they can go any time they like, any day they like and they don't have to sign up the day before for a meals center program. thank you to daas and thank you to the board of supervisors and we hope for support for these programs in the future. >> supervisor tang, would you like to say a few words? >> yes, thank you. i think this program is a prime example how our department thinks outside of the box and doing something really creative to help serve our seniors. in district 4 we have the

highest population of people 65 and older, so for them to be able to sign up for this card and get a free meal at a restaurant and not feel like they have to go to a specify place, but integrate as part of society is incredible. i want to thank richard and thank self-help for the elderly and thank anne hinton and it's one of my favorite places to eat, because it stays open late enough for me after i get home from work. thank you very much, richard. >> thank you. >> thank you everybody. thank you. [ applause ]

>> thank you, supervisor yee. next up we have supervisor mar. >> thank you, president breed. colleagues i would like to ask if you could join me in recognizing an important environmental leader, mr. jack colburn, who is a senior leader from the bay area air quality management district and i would like to ask if he could come forward. is he here with his wife and his daughter, but we're also joined by the executive director of the air district, mr. jack broadbent and rex sanders and marsila martinez. the air district is a 60-year-old entity for the whole bay area and supervisor john avalos and i serve on it with the mayor's appointee roger kim. and the 6-year organization's vision is to protection the

public health air quality and the global climate and to really advance healthy air for all in the san francisco bay area. mr. jack colburn has dedicated his life to advancing public health, clean area and environmental protection. throughout his career in public service he has worked with organizations such as the peace corps, the u.s. state department and for 15 years the u.s. environmental protection agency before joining the bay area air quality management district. until his recent retirement he served as director of communications, outreach and incentives and the administrative services division for the air district; from which he is retiring after a decade of distinguished service. i met jack when i was a school board member in 2004-2005 when supervisor kim and supervisor yee were also on the board of education and jack worked with us to ensure that the school

school district had clean airbuss and limiting children's exposure to harmful particulate matter and asthma issues. jack was really great to work with them, as he has been for the past ten years. during his time at the air district, he has been instrumental also in providing the district grants to community organizations and organizations in san francisco; that have reduced air pollution and emissions, including developing alternative energy measures with the federal state and local businesses and organizations as well. he personally oversaw our air district programs throughout the whole region that assisted in protecting and improving public health and the air quality and global climate as well. it's been great to work with him, an amazing public servant. he assures me is going to continue his lifetime of service with many different organizations and i wanted to ask if we could acknowledge mr. colburn for his great work.

i know kathy and caitlin are him and marsila and rex, and mr. broadbent, if you would like to come forward if you can. please join me in recognizing and giving aplause to mr. jack colburn for his service to our city and region. [ applause ] >> good afternoon, supervisors. i just think my speech was given for me just now. anyway, it was a great pleasure serving the air district and serving the city and county of san francisco. thank you, to mr. broadbent for the opportunity and thank to my wife and daughter for being here. it's quite a privilege. it's one month since i have retired and i'm looking for stuff to do. [laughter ] anyway, thank you all for your time. it's really an honor.

all those in favor, thank you. [ applause ] some of you know san francisco is one of the amazing places where craft beer, the tradition in many

ways begin and i know a number of my colleagues love san francisco's craft breweries, as much as i do. this coming week beginning february 6th begins san francisco beer week in our city and it runs through february 15th, the day after valentine's day. there is a number of people i wanted to call up to acknowledge this 7-year tradition in san francisco. on polk street, they are richmond district residents and they are a small business that is really thriving kind of in your corridor near city hall, but they are also residents the richmond. also ivan the owner of one of our great local breweries on folsom and masonic as one example of a local brewer.

i would like to ask if ivan could come forward and lastly brian, who is the executive director of the 10-year-old san francisco brewer's guild and wanted to acknowledge the associate editor for "celebrate beer news." he is also the writer for beer by bart.com that allows people to get to these great places to enjoy craft beer in our city by public transit. i would like to ask if the folks i mentioned could please come forward. we're celebrating craft beer week that takes place each year in the second week of february and the san francisco brewers' guild, 20 members, about 15 in your city. great brewers and they are holding a gala coming up this coming up week with representatives form 24 of our

states in the united states, and six countries and about 2500 people. in past over 500 different beer events to celebrate in our city have been held each year throughout the region, from breweris and brew pubs to restaurants, beers and retail stores and events include meet the brewer opportunities, dinners, tastings, special beer releases, lectures and panel discussions. also open brew days and home brewing demonstrations and lots of great educations that connect the local beer community with artisan beer. as the richmond district supervisor, we're lucky to be in close proximity to sf brew craft that allows home-brewers to make their own and healthy spirits and stores that provide a great outlet for the variety

of craft beers and beer halls,steins and the recently opened place on clement street in the richmond district. these small businesses like the beer hall that are up here, they are really the entrepreneurs that own them and contribute to our vibrancy of our merchant corridors and our city. and they help bond our communities by providing interesting and fun social venues to help foster an artform beer and steve shapiro wanted me to acknowledge too that anchor brewery is again the birthplaces of the craft beer tradition and san francisco being kind of ground-zero for a lot of the great ones in our bay area region as well. so with that, i would like to ask if our different representatives would like to say a few words.

we have brian from the sf brewers guild. >> thank you, supervisor mar. it's an honor to accept this commendation alongside my colleagues in the industry, just a handful of who make this event possible. >> drink beer, but take public transportation. [laughter ] >> andrew and jennifer from the beer hall. >> good afternoon. thank you so much for the recognition, supervisor mar. you know, despite all of the challenges that it is to run a small business, i do remember being here almost two years ago at our hearing. it's an honor and a privilege to own and operate a small business in san francisco and especially being part of beer week and just being able to bring our community together, and work in mid-market. thank you. >> andrew --

>> i let my wife speak for me. [laughter ] >> i wanted to say these folk s here represent the pride of making it in san francisco, but please support beer week. can we have a round of applause for these folks. [ applause ] >> i will add only drink beer if you are at the appropriate age to do so. [laughter ] >> thank you very much.

supervisor campos with our final commendation for today. >> thank you, madame president and cheers to the honorees. it is my honor and privilege to call upon a very special young man, allesandro gonzalez, i believe is here with his mom and his dad, his grandmother and i think the rest of his family. allesandro gonzalez. su familia. i also see our fire chief, who is here, and chief, if you could come up as well, before i turn it over to allesandro, i want to give the chief an opportunity to say a few words as well. we have heard a lot about the

fire at 22nd and mission and i have spoken about this earlier in the meeting. we are here today to honor the heroism of a very special young man, allesandro gonzalez, who lives in district 9, and he displayed exceptional bravery and good judgment during the tragic fire. allesandro, who is 13 years old is in the 7th grade at edison charter academy. that day, when the fire took place and i remember -- as you may remember, i noted that the fire alarms were not working and a lot of people did not know there was actually a fire. so allesandro was home alone that day with his dog, buddy. when the fire began, he heard loud voices outside, didn't really know what was going on